


Through A Glass, Darkly

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Erotica, Exhibitionism, M/M, Mild Kink, Porn with Feelings, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 12:42:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2508260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I never seem to get my kink to behave normally. I just don't. This started as one kind of erotic fantasy and it segued into something else. It's definitely erotica/soft porn, but as usual it's more lyric and emotional than just friction and hormones. </p><p>The key premise is simply that even the most controlled people sometimes, when handed a lunatic idea, just--do it. If they think they can get away with it, it happens. Because want. Because crazy. Because opportunity. Maybe because love, because need, because longing. </p><p>This has kink elements, but they are pretty much ALL muted, moderated, softened, compromised. See what you think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through A Glass, Darkly

“Mr. Holmes?”

“Hmmmm?” Mycroft twitched, and dragged his attention from the mirrored glass windows along the atrium. “I’m sorry, I was distracted.”

“Yeah, you were,” DI Lestrade said. He tipped his head, considering, and his eyes narrowed—then he laughed. “Yeah. You definitely were. Distracted, I mean. What’s the devil on your shoulder whispering?”

Mycroft scowled, only too aware of the flaming blush racing over his face. “Excuse me?” The best defense was a good offence. “There’s no need to sink to innuendo and salacious suggestion, Lestrade.” He took a breath, demanding his body calm and settle in response to his will.

“Right. Yeah, OK. Whatever you say.”

It was obvious Lestrade was completely unintimidated by Mycroft’s attempt to turn the tables. He studied the younger man patiently, waiting for a response.

Mycroft huffed, and narrowed his own eyes. If he’d been a cat he’d have bristled out and hissed. “We were discussing your plans to observe Milano when he next makes his rounds of the local mosques. It’s vital we respect the innocent and their worship, even while keeping tabs on those less….”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ve got it covered, Mr. Holmes. Look, we know our own jobs. You do yours, we do ours, everyone’s happy.” Lestrade’s eyes ran over Mycroft’s features again, then flicked quickly around the atrium, pausing at the dark mirrored windows. “What’s over there?” he asked.

“I believe offices,” Mycroft said.

“Huh.” Lestrade stood and wandered aimlessly over. He squinted. “You can almost see in, can’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mycroft snapped, though in fact he had a very good idea indeed.

“I mean—I can see there are people in this one,” Lestrade said, arms crossing over his chest. He bounced on the balls of his feet, thinking. “I can see them move—shadows. I can’t quite make out detail, though. Not even as sharp as shadows on the wall. There—I think that one’s shaking hands with someone.”

“Really, Lestrade,” Mycroft said, “Why are you wasting my time on this?”

“Why were _you_ wasting your time on it?” Lestrade countered, without looking back. “They can see out, though, can’t they? To them it’s got to seem like I’m looking in, watching everything.”

“They’re called privacy windows for a reason,” Mycroft snapped. “Everyone who uses such knows they’re one-way.”

“But they aren’t. That’s the point,” Lestrade said. “They’re…almost one-way. Different from a brick wall, though. You can see. You can see…enough.” He turned and his eyes met Mycrofts. “Fantasy-fodder there, yeah?” He gave the younger man a truly wicked grin. “I mean, think about it? Right there on the wicked edge of exhibitionism… Hot. And right here on the ground storey, not two feet off the walk around the planters and the fountain. At rush hour there are going to be a lot of people walking by, looking in, guessing what they’re watching. But they’re never sure, are they? And they never know who they watched…” He gave a sharp, tense bark of laughter. “Going red, Holmes. Too close for comfort?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Mycroft growled, knowing he was in fact crimson.

“Holmeses aren’t the only ones who can deduce,” Lestrade said. His tongue darted out and licked his lower lip. “I ought to take a look at these. Might be worth renting some office space for surveillance here.”

“We’re here because there’s nothing here to surveil. It’s predictable, boring, and utterly respectable.”

“Yeah? Still. I’d like to take a look,” Lestrade said. “Just preparing. I may want to know in future.”

“By all means, do,” Mycroft said, gathering up his umbrella and draping his coat over his elbow. He rose. “I’ll be on my way, though.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” Lestrade said, energy crackling off him like static off a long-haired cat in January. “Your driver’s only half-way through his lunch right now. Hasn’t even made a dent in his pint. We can see if there are any vacancies.”

Mycroft blinked, nervously. “I’m not sure I understand…”

“Yeah. You do.” Lestrade smiled.

Mycroft couldn’t stop the sudden, deep intake of breath that followed that smile.

“I…”

“Interested?”

The shiver that spread over his body, raising the hairs on his neck and arms, prickling over his belly, setting his groin stirring—it was overwhelming. “Rules…” he managed to husk out. “It’s…”

“I’m not officially under your command, Holmes. Damned near your peer, looked at  one way.” He flashed white teeth in a smile that was so very young, utterly contrary to his actual age. “Rules…don’t quite fit. Do they?”

“Loopholes,” Mycroft muttered, dismissively, as he clutched tighter to the handle of the umbrella. Then, suddenly, his intentions flipped, topsy-turvy, arse-over-teakettle. His head came up and he smiled. “But, then, loopholes are there for a reason. We all need loopholes. Don’t we?”

“We do, we do, we deedy-deedy-do,” Lestrade agreed, grinning harder, so that a dimple formed near the corner of his mouth.

Mycroft nodded briskly, not quite fighting back a grin of his own. He stepped out briskly, heading for the corridor that led out of the atrium. “I believe the business offices are this way,” he said.

“Why bother with business offices,” Lestrade said, voice seeming to purr. “We know how to get in…”

Mycroft sniffed at the implied use of waved warrant cards and the use of covert lock picks. “Don’t be ludicrous,” he said. “I’m just going to find out if any of the offices are vacant. Saves time and dithering.”

“There is that,” Lestrade said. “But we’d be on record—“

“As what?” Mycroft sniffed. “Two officers of Her Majesty’s government inquiring into a very simple point of fact. Hardly suspicious. Nor are we contemplating a crime…exactly.”

“Mmmm.” Lestrade snorted softly. Not exactly. Barring a bit of covert breaking and entering. Not to mention…”

Mycroft turned to him, halfway down the corridor. The turn was so fast Lestrade nearly walked right into him, stopping so close their breath mingled. “Inspector Lestrade, barring a little bit of breaking and entering we’re planning nothing inherently illegal. Inappropriate, yes. Illegal? Hardly.”

Lestrade didn’t pull back, and his laughter puffed softly over Mycroft’s face. “Inappropriate. Yeah. OK. Lead on, Macduff.”

“Lay on.”

“What?”

“The quote is ‘Lay on, Macduff.’ In full, it’s ‘Lay on, Macduff. And damned be him who first cries, Hold, enough!’ Everyone gets it wrong.”

Lestrade’s brown eyes glimmered with laughter and excitement. “Yeah, ok. Good quote for the situation, then, wouldn’t you say? Lay on, Mr. Holmes…and I won’t cry quits if you won’t.”

Mycroft just smiled.

It took mere minutes to determine that there were three separate offices vacant—only a few more to review the blueprints to determine where the offices were placed in relation to the atrium walkway.

Lestrade, blathering something entirely innocuous about potentially hiring space for a temporary project consolidating old records, tapped one finger on the very office Mycroft would have chosen, eyes catching and questioning. Mycroft nodded, already afire as he thought about it. The windows looked right over the primary walk through the building. People passed constantly; they sat on the benches build into the big concrete planters, they ate lunch at the little tables by the leaping fountain in the center of the space. He’d seen a mother with her child in a pushchair stop in front of that very window, first checking her lipstick in the mirrored surface, then peering harder, trying to make out what shadowed forms lay in the office beyond. Mycroft nodded again.

“Any chance we could look around,” Lestrade said to the building manager.

“Of course,” he said. “I can show you over right now.”

“Maybe not right now,” Lestrade said. “I’m on call. Not the best time to do a serious check. Maybe tonight, eleven-ish? I’m off call then.”

The building manager looked forlorn. “I suppose,” he said. “You’re not free during business hours?”

Lestrade shrugged. “Copper’s life,” he said. “If I had a key I could show myself around, but…”

The building manager brightened up. “That could be arranged,” he said. “If you don’t mind signing for it?”

“Not at all,” Lestrade said, flashing that choir-boy impish smile again. “Any limits on when I can go around?”

“None,” the manager said. “Keep the key for a few days, drop it through the mail-drop when you’re done. I’ll give you the building key and the office key. You can look whenever you like.”

Later, as they walked down the corridor, Mycroft said, admiringly, “Now it’s not even breaking and entering.”

“Still entirely inappropriate, though,” Lestrade pointed out. He walked eagerly, happy and excited as a dog let out for a run after a long weekend pent up. “We need any goodies before we go in? There’s a chemist up on the mezzanine.”

“Protection? Lube? I doubt they’ll have anything more high-tech,” Mycroft said. “They’re a small shop.”

“I can do a lot with those.”

“Likewise,” Mycroft purred. “Why don’t I run up and purchase supplies. You open the office and see if it’s going to work.”

“Will do.”

Mycroft was quick about his errand, and soon back downstairs with his little bag from the chemist’s. He was pleased to make it to the office unseen, passing down an empty corridor to the main door. He knocked lightly with one bent knuckle.

The door opened, and Lestrade’s laughing eyes looked out. “In-in-in,” he said, softly, and closed the door as soon as Mycroft came through. He quickly locked and bolted the door. “Find what we needed?”

Mycroft didn’t answer at first, looking around the room. “Fully furnished, I see…”

“Yeah—and the next room’s even better,” Lestrade chortled. “This here’s for the peasants—open floor plan low-wage drones. Next room’s the big man’s office. Executive desk, big fake silk tree by the window. Trying to be posh.”

Mycroft could imagine it—and imagine things to do in it. Silently, he opened the bag and poured the contents out onto one of the desks in the main office.

Lestrade leaned over and crooned, happily. “Yeah, good. Got your basic lubricated sheaths, got your gel—strawberry?”

“No selection, I’m afraid. The other choice was bubble-gum flavor.”

“Damn. Happy to be spared that, anyway.”

“I thought perhaps,” Mycroft drawled. “You like the rest?”

Lestrade hummed happily. “Cinnamon lip gloss, wintergreen athletic salve, menthol hand cream…and a vibrating electric tooth-brush. Mr. Holmes, you really _are_ a genius!”

“I didn’t get where I am without a knack for improvisation,” Mycroft responded, pleased his partner liked the options.

Lestrade nodded, then his face darkened with sudden uncertainty. “You sure you want to do this?”

Mycroft nodded, and even he could feel his eyes dilate—the odd sense of seeing vividly, of energy in every glance.

“Why?” Lestrade asked. “After all these years working together…why?”

Mycroft didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say about over ten years of desired turned aside, ignored—or, when it couldn’t be ignored, compartmentalized, with fantasies locked away whenever Mycroft was working—which, with Lestrade, was always. After the silence had stretched just a bit too long, he said, “I should call in and tell Anthea I’m taking a formal lunch break. Maybe even some time off.”

Lestrade nodded, and both men turned away, not looking at each other as they murmured into their mobiles. When they’d both turned back, Mycroft said, belatedly, “Why? Because I want to. That’s all. I…want to.”

Lestrade’s eyes flared wide, and his breath kicked hard. “Yeah,” he managed. Then, “What’s your pick?”

“What’s yours?”

“No, no,” Lestrade said, voice growing deeper and hoarser. “You were imagining something out there. Like I said, this place is fantasy fodder. What’s your pick, sunshine?”

Mycroft nodded, and glanced askance at the big plate glass window that made up one full wall of the office. People walked back and forth—a steady stream, most pausing to look instinctively at their shadowed reflections moving beside them, and to look deeper into the dim, shadowy forms within. It was like they could see—

“Naked,” Mycroft said, feeling that shivery boy-child sense of naughtiness and taboos broken. “Naked, where they can see us—almost see us.”

“Uhn,” Lestrade agreed. “Close, too? Near the window?”

“Mmmm.”

“Let’s go to the executive office,” Lestrade said. “Better playground.”

Mycroft nodded. He turned toward the office and found Lestrade following—following close, one hand slipping to the small of Mycroft’s back, then down, cradling one cheek of Mycroft’s bum, fingers stroking along the center seam of his trousers, tickling along the inner curve of his thigh.

“Uhhhh.” The gasp was pulled out of him, his body reacting without asking Mycroft’s permission first. He took two more steps and swiveled, only to find Lestrade moving with the turn like a practiced ballroom dancer, his hand at Mycroft’s waist. The shorter man took another step forward. Mycroft instinctively stepped back, his head tucking down to watch their feet move together—even as Lestrade snaked his free hand up into Mycroft’s jacket. The invading hand caressed up, over Mycroft’s chest and up to his shoulder, where it eased back the lapel and front panel.

“Work with me,” Lestrade murmured. “Help me along, here…”

Mycroft, startled, nodded and dropped his shoulder, letting the other man ease the jacket down. Mycroft’s bum nudged up against what he assumed was the desk, forcing him to stop as Lestrade’s other hand moved from his waist to his neck.

In a satin-smooth motion, Lestrade stroked the jacket down over Mycroft’s arms, waiting while Mycroft eased his hands from the sleeves. Mycroft, hands free, went for Lestrade’s overcoat like a terrier going after a rat—grabbing it firmly by the lapels and tugging-tugging-tugging until it was off and he could toss it aside.

Less than six feet away a man stopped on the walkway, then frowned into the dark mirrored glass.

“He sees us,” Lestrade panted. “Can’t be sure—doesn’t quite know. Shadows moving…”

“Nnnnnnng.” Mycroft was hard just thinking about it. The conflict—the sense of exposure, the knowledge of privacy, the feeling of being helpless and on display, the certain surety that he really wasn’t…the opposites clashed and banged around in his skull, backed with vivid associative links spilling in from the networked galaxy that served as his mind palace.

Habit screamed for him to take back control, return to proper reserve. A wild, laughing spirit of mayhem bitch-slapped habit and tossed it under the bus. He was grinning like a hyena, all teeth and crazy eyes. His fingers raced down the buttons of Lestrade’s shirt, leaving a spreading V of pale skin and silver chest hair showing in their wake, like the V of turbulence trailing a careening motorboat raising waves on a previously smooth lake.

“Christ-fuck, what are we doing,” Lestrade gasped, nerves evident as his voice screeled up and cracked. He didn’t’ stop either, though. He had Mycroft’s tie off already, hanging from his arm—a long patterned serpent with a forlorn knot left after the loop had long since been pulled free. He’d wrestled the first few buttons of Mycroft’s shirt open, only to run into the upper edge of the neck of his waistcoat. “Damn—too many layers!”

“Take your time.” Mycroft’s voice caught just thinking about it, and his hips raked against Lestrade’s.

Lestrade growled and panted, then leaned in, grabbing Mycroft’s shoulders as he nuzzled his way into the partially open shirt. His mouth found Mycroft’s throat. He mouthed the skin, licked, lapped, then teeth touched and he gently worried at the line of tendon rising up the top line of Mycroft’s shoulder and then angling up toward his ear.

Mycroft whined. His hands were still trapped against Lestrade’s soft stomach. He twisted them, slipping them into Lestrade’s shirt. He pushed on, until his hands gripped Lestrade’s waist tight, pulling the man closer—hips and all.

“Mine,” he muttered, not really aware he was saying it, and certainly not thinking too deeply about what he meant. “Mine.” Lestrade was nipping at his neck, near his jugular—sharp little bites that didn’t break skin but pinched. Mycroft felt his nipples harden as the microscopic flashes of pain mixed with desire: not enough pain to do more than season the hunger for touch. It was like pepper on a good steak—flashes of heat against  the sweet-salt richness of rare beef.

They scrambled together, peeling away layers, undressing each other, themselves, zigzagging between lust and laughter and gasping arousal.

“Turn your head,” Lestrade said, as he lifted Mycroft up while easing him back across the desk. “Turn and look…”

Mycroft did, and gasped. A woman stood outside the window, face only a foot or so from the glass, eyes gazing in. He knew immediately that she’d sorted Lestrade and him out of the shadows—discerned their figures behind the mirrored pane. He knew she knew what she couldn’t quite see.

She was an elegant woman in her fifties, he thought—a classic “woman of breeding.” She wore a soft, flowing blouse in a dark floral print…lavenders and dusky blues and deep rose tones, he thought, though the tinted mirror might he warping his color sense. She wore soft womanly slacks in something like rayon that draped over her body without clinging. She had a simple, elegant shoulder bag in dark cordovan leather, and her hair was swept up and pinned high, with silver wings at either temple. A string of pearls filled the open neck of her blouse and gold earrings with heavy pearl bobs hung at her ears.

Her eyes were wide and dark, and a soft, sensuous smile ticked up the corners of a mouth that remained well-shaped long after bee-stung youth had passed. She took a deep breath, and stepped even closer to the glass, one hand rising to lie against the surface. The glass fogged around her palm.

“Fuck,” Lestrade husked in Mycroft’s ear. “Can she see us?”

“Yes. No….” Mycroft gulped. “Yes—but not enough to know. Not enough to be sure. Only enough to imagine.”

They looked at her dark eyes, blown wide, staring into the smoked crystal, seeing visions.

“Fuck,” Lestrade husked, “how sexy is that?” Mycroft felt his partner shake under his hands.

Mycroft arched his neck, swanlike, to place a kiss on Lestrade’s temple, then pushed with his palms, asking to be let up. When he rose, he stripped away the last clothes left, his trousers and pants. Then he straightened and walked, naked and tall, to stand in front of the window.

The woman’s head tipped up. The floor of the office and the walkway around the atrium were at nearly the same height. The plate glass stopped at Mycroft’s mid-shin level.

 

He was taller than the woman. She knew it, and read his faint, dark shadow, tipping her head up. He put his hand against the glass, against her own in chaste tenderness. He could feel the heat of her blood through the glass, and knew she felt his. Her fingers flexed, the pads of her fingers and palm spread and whitened as she pushed her hand more firmly against the pane.

“Have you ever made love to a woman?” Lestrade whispered, coming to stand behind him.

“A few times,” Mycroft said. “When I was young. When I thought perhaps I just didn’t understand. It wasn’t bad. It was just…off.”

Lestrade wrapped his arms around Mycroft and kissed the nape of his neck, before resting his head against the taller man’s shoulders. “I like both. Either. Different but both good. In the end for me what makes it ‘off’ isn’t gender, it’s being with the wrong person for the wrong reason.”

“And this is the right reason?” Mycroft chuffed his amusement. “We’re rutting in a vacant office getting off on being not-quite-seen. The thrill of uncertain exhibitionism.”

Lestrade was about to answer when the woman opened her free hand and raised it to her mouth, placing a kiss in her own palm. She raised her palm and pressed it to the glass in front of Mycroft’s face.

The two men shivered, silent, Lestrade waiting to see what Mycroft would do.

Mycroft closed his eyes and stepped forward, until he could lean his face against the glass. Blind, he found the warmth of her touch with the plane of his cheek. He turned his face and pressed a kiss of his own into the starfish outline on the glass, breath fogging his side as heat fogged hers.

“Someone’s noticed. That man on the bench,” Lestrade murmured. “Best step back.”

Mycroft nodded. He moved back, trailing the fingers of his free hand over hers, before falling far enough back to disappear into a vague blur.

“She can still see us,” he said. “She knows we’re here.”

They watched as she looked to either side—watched as understanding colored her face, blushing her cheeks. For a moment they thought she’d leave. Instead she went and sat on the bench opposite, folding her hands in her lap, letting her face grow still. She was no longer looking, so much as staring into forever.

Lestrade, saying nothing, let his hands glide from Mycroft’s shoulders to his arms, to his elblows, to his wrists, to his hands, which now hung empty and relaxed at his sides. Mycroft turned them until he could lace his fingers through Lestrade’s.

The emptiness of the room surrounded them. It was drab, for all its pretension to pomp and status. The thin, hard carpeting was of a muted grey-brown. The walls were tasteful cream with a band of geometric wallpaper marking out the elbow-high line where wainscoting might otherwise run, and an echoing band just below the ceiling. The shades, undrawn, were ugly vertical plastic strips dangling from little metal tethers. The silk tree had dark leaves striped white and blackish green, a pattern printed somewhat off-alignment, forcing the viewer to recognize the cheap deceit. The room smelled of dust and cleaning solutions and the dank odor of people working too long with too little ventilation.

Beyond, though, the plants grew tall and lush—entire trees grown below the skylight, and a dense understory of ferns and flowering shrubs. Light slanted down, turning leaves emerald and peridot and citrine-gold, and lingered on crimson trumpets thrusting up from the lower beds. The fountain at the heart of the atrium leapt and splashed, not quite audible in the office. People walked past, cutting off sight of the woman on the bench. Her eyes never left the window. Her hands never stirred.

Lestrade kissed along Mycroft’s shoulder, then turned Mycroft around, cradling his bum in strong hands. They locked lips, moving in a slow, steady graph curve from exploratory to teasing to tempestuous. They shifted, each finding a curve or hillock on which to rest arched erections.

“Why are we…”

“Shut up,” Mycroft growled, and pulled closer still, past caring that his fingers would leave leopard-spot bruises on Lestrade’s flanks, or that Lestrade’s nails were raking stripes down his back. “Lie down.” He twisted, gripped, rolled, a supple wrestler pinning his opponent to the mat. “Once. Just once…”

“Just once what?”

“This. You. Now…” What he meant he wasn’t sure. Something about wanting just one time in his life to be wicked without shame. To make love without fear. To be foolish without consequence piling up on consequence, leaving dead bodies and grieving widows and widowers and orphans in his wake. “This. Happy.” Then he dove into another kiss.

He was sure the woman was still there, her eyes making love to the faint shades that moved beyond the veil of glass. He could feel the touch of her gaze, the butterfly flutter of her regard on his skin.

Lestrade gave a muted bellow, sound choked back because glass hid their forms better than their shouts. “Uuuuh. Uh, damn.” He heaved, rolled, and pinned Mycroft in return. “Gimme a minute, you sonofabitch,” he said, both fierce and amiable, determined but bearing no anger. “Jesus, Holmes…” he stood, and Mycroft, lying on the floor, looked up, admiring Lestrade’s strong thighs, the neatness of his knees and ankles, the low swing of his balls as his cock jabbed upward. The other man went out to the main room, and returned moments later with his hands overflowing with condoms and creams.

“You like a bit of a burn, don’t you?”

“I got one tube of plain gel, just in case.”

“I see that.” Lestrade settled cross-legged on the floor near Mycroft’s waist, looking down into Mycroft’s face. He poured his treasures onto the carpet then ran a finger down the ventral line of Mycroft’s body, from the deep hollow of his throat to the base of his risen prick. His eyes were dark and soft and alive—animal and untamed. Male. Comfortingly without sentiment, but instead sweet with laughter and desire and just a trace of irony.

“How’d we end up here, eh? You an’ me after all this time. All these years. What changed?”

“Nothing,” Mycroft said. “Opportunity arose.” He smiled, mischievously. “And so did I.”

Lestrade plucked Mycroft’s cock like a musician pluching a harp string. He watched it bounce and return. “So you did.” He smiled, crow’s-feet crinkling. “Any ideas how you want this to go?”

 _Insane_ , Mycroft thought. _I want it to go crazy. Eyes rolled back, gibberish pouring out of my mouth, not a speck of sense left between us, totally and completely insane. That’s how I want this to go._ He didn’t care who fucked whom, or if they “fucked” at all, but he wanted to come so hard his brain went all blue-screen-of-death on him and he had to reboot the system. He wanted to hang on to Lestrade when the same thing happened to him, feel him jolting like a cranky grain-fed horse let out of the stable on a spring day, sunfishing all around the paddock. He wanted to drift back to sanity to the sound of stunned panting and little noises like chicks breaking through the shell—pip-peep-chee….Little high sounds of wonder and awe.

“I can save you having to ask,” he growled. “My lead?”

Something wild and wicked flashed deep in Lestrade’s eyes. “Tell you what. I’ll fight you for the lead…”

Mycroft gave a sharp bark of laughter, and the next thing he knew they were at each other, fighting, wrestling, squirming, trying to combine two goals in one—gain control, and in the process spur the other higher. Lestrade pinned Mycroft. Mycroft, preparing for a return, reached out blindly until he found a tube. He grabbed it even as he flipped and pinned, then clenched his teeth around the cap, twisting it free. He fisted it tight, and slid his hand between them, oozing salve over Lestrade’s pecker—feeling the skin slip under the tips of his fingers, and the weight settle into the palm of his hand. Lestrade moaned, thurst up into Mycroft’s fist, then thrashed, tossing them over and gaining the upper hand. He panted as he straddled Mycroft’s hips. Rather than snatching at the tube he groped until he found a small tub of ointment. He leaned over, working hard to keep Mycroft pinned securely with just his elbows, as he fought to open the tub. When he had, one hand snaked down and gripped Mycroft firmly, fingers flexing before he pumped once, twice, three times, making sure the other man was slick and covered.

Mycroft sucked in his breath, eyes closing as the mild menthol scent rose up. Then he panted out, the burn quick and decisive, without being agony. “Oh…”

“Good?”

Mycroft snaked his arms around Lestrade’s waist and twisted, coming to rest lying above him, foot-to-foot, knee-to-knee, crotch to crotch. He grabbed them firmly in one hand and rolled his hips, thrusting in, pulling back, thrusting in again, the stinging ointment spreading over Lestrade even as the cooler gel oozed over Mycroft. “Good?” he echoed, grinning.

“Uh…”

So, he thought as he watched Lestrade’s eyelids flutter shut, and heard his breath slow and deepen. So—they weren’t going to need the condoms after all, from the looks of things. That was all right.

What wasn’t all right was the waste of the fantasy. He leaned close and nuzzled along Lestrade’s jaw, kissed beneath his ear. “Come on, love. Let’s get you up.” He slid off Lestrade, and eased him first to sit, then, with a cock of his head toward the window, said, “Showtime…”

He felt the shudder go through Lestrade like the rumble of a train through the Tube—heavy, juddering vibration. “Uh…”

He helped the other man come to kneel in front of the glass. They could see out—see the beautiful atrium, the lush foliage and flowers, the brilliant diamond-sparks of the fountain. The passing strangers. The woman on her bench, eyes still fixed, watching.

“Find our reflection, love,” Mycroft whispered. “It’s there, ghosts over the world outside. Find it…”

They were reflected together, dimly. Mycroft steadied Lestrade, helping him kneel tall and upright, a lovely long line from knees to silver scalp. He knelt behind, tall enough to peer over Lestrade’s shoulder. He placed himself carefully, angling them so his own body-line shone beside Lestrade’s a thin strip echoing his lovers from the floor up.

They were beautiful together, he thought, too entranced by the image to care about modesty or humility. Together they were beautiful, and so painfully erotic. Their reflections wrapped the woman beyond, so she appeared like a superimposed spirit at the very center of their bodies. Her chin came up, and he was sure she’d detected their movement, realized they’d come to kneel together. Nothing overt—nothing clear. Nothing she could be certain of but what her intuition proclaimed. It was enough. He could see her shift and settle deeper, with them in this last lap of their shared race.

“She’s beautiful,” he said to Lestrade. “I so seldom see a woman as beautiful. Not in any…earthy sense.”

“She knows,” Lestrade gasped, as Mycroft settled firmly against him, cock nesting in the crease of his arse. Gasping again when Mycroft reached around and gripped firm.

They moved together, Mycroft’s hand rising and falling, working the warm menthol in, feeling his partner swell harder and thicker, firm in his hand. Fierce in his hand. Feeling Lestrade rock back, tense his bum, giving him a tight, welcoming trough to ride.

It was electric. Every flicker of the leaves, every blink of the woman’s eyes, every stranger who walked past the window, glancing in but never fully seeing…every one that stopped and squinted, looking for shadows…

Every gasp.

Every sigh.

Mycroft could feel his mind falling away, barely any use beyond rapture and the occasional suggestion. His free hand traced Lestrade’s nipples, caressed his lips. He sighed when Lestrade sucked his fingers in and teased the pads with a strong, velvet tongue. He could feel both their orgasms on the way, coming closer, closer, the drip and slick of pre-come adding to the slide and heave as they labored together toward climax.

It was like climbing a mountain—slow, hard work that left them both hot and panting. Mycroft’s thumb teased beneath the fat mushroom head of Lestrade’s pecker, dragging out moans. At last Lestrade’s orgasm hit, and he doubled over then snapped straight again, hips driving forward. Mycroft grabbed the sounds, the smell, the feel of his lover spasming in his arms, and drove himself firmly against him, eyes crimped so tight he saw stars in the darkness. He keened, barely throttling back the volume, and then came, jerking once, and again, and again. Then they came to rest, Lestrade folding his legs until he sat on his own heels, body bowed down over his legs. He crossed his arms over his knees, and rested his forehead on his arms. Mycroft lay over him, resting his weight on Lestrade’s back. He wrapped his arms gently around Lestrade’s shoulders, and made himself look up.

The woman sat on the bench, eyes closed. There was a look of almost prayerful contentment on her face, and her hands seemed to fold piously in her lap.

“Beautiful,” Mycroft said, and didn’t know if he meant her, or Lestrade, or what they’d done together. “Beautiful,” he said again, because it didn’t matter—it was true, no matter which he chose.

The cleaned up as best they could. There were spatters on the glass. Mycroft went to the loo off the main office and rummaged until he found a partially used pack of brown paper towels—the sort that went in paper towel dispensers. He dampened some, kept others dry. He came back and wiped Lestrade, and the window, and the moist, thick streamers spewed across the cheap carpet. He cleaned himself.

He looked around. It was a grim, tawdry room, now that they were done. He glanced at the window. The woman was rising from the bench. The other pedestrians kept on, moving back and forth, oblivious to the excitement that had reigned mere feet away and mere minutes before. It was different, now. Before it had been enchantment. Now it felt faintly corrupt, like a Brie cheese gone over the edge and smelling of ammonia.

“Are you sorry you did it?” Lestrade asked, rising and slipping on his shirt.

“No,” Mycroft said, and smiled quietly. “No. Not in the least. You?”

“No.” He glanced at Mycroft. “Kind of glad it finally happened.”

They were silent. Mycroft risked asking. “Because it’s over now? Not a temptation anymore?”

“No—because now we can move on past ‘will we or not.’”

“I never let myself admit it was a question, until today. A fantasy on occasion. Not an option.”

Lestrade grinned, and leaned in to kiss Mycroft in the complex saddle-shaped curve where chin and jaw and the corner of his lip came together. “I know. But it was. I knew.”

“Smarty,” Mycroft teased. “If you’re so clever, tell me—will we do it again?”

“Maybe not this, exactly,” Lestrade said, glancing around the room. “I can think of nicer places to shag. But—yeah. Unless you freak on me, then yeah. We’ll do it again.” He risked a flirting glance from the corner of his eye as he pulled on his trousers. “Next time somewhere I can make you scream…”

Mycroft choked, laughed, and tied his tie neatly under his collar. “I’ll make you live up to that,” he said—then noticed the woman stood once more at the window, both hands wide against the glass as she leaned close and rested her cheek against the cool, smooth surface. She no longer struggled to see in.

He crossed and looked at her.

“She’s so lonely,” he said, softly. He placed his hands against the glass again, letting his palms warm hers. Then, softy, he leaned down and rested his lips on the glass against over her cheek. “Thank you,” he murmured clearly, knowing the sound would carry. “Thank you, dearest.”

He heard her sigh—faint through the glass, but unmistakable. “No, she said. “Thank you.” Then she straightened, and without looking back, she walked away.

“She’s so lonely,” he said again, and closed his eyes, only to be surprised by the touch of Lestrade’s hands in his own, and Lestrade’s kiss on his cheek.


End file.
